Tensions within diverse Jewish communities increase following October 7th
Irith Michelsohn, general secretary of Germany ’s Union of Progressive Jews: the group is seeking an increase in federal annual funding of between 4 and 19 per cent. Photograph: Tobias BarniskeIts October 7th attacks on Israel , and Jerusalem’s response, have increased tensions around the world – but with particular emotional heft in Germany , the land of the Holocaust.
For Berlin’s federal government the answer is clear: the Central Committee of Jews in Germany . Founded by survivors in 1950, it was 2003 before the ZdJ signed a state treaty with Germany. For the “preservation and maintenance of German-Jewish cultural heritage”, it secured €3 million in annual federal funding which has increased over the years and, last year, reached €22 million.
Irith Michelsohn, general secretary of Germany’s Union of Progressive Jews , points out how the nature of Judaism means it doesn’t have a pope or central, hierarchical structures: “Yet the central committee has increased its monopolist position from year to year.” For years the UPJ has sought – in vain – a meeting in Germany’s federal interior ministry with a view to changing the 2003 state treaty to allow direct funding of more than one Jewish organisation.
As well as a funding monopoly, not all Jews in Germany appreciate the ZdJ speaking on their behalf, in particular what some see as its negative messaging monopoly about a surge of anti-Semitism in the last months.
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